AI-powered healthcare via APIs: Enabling access to ECG diagnostics
Application programming interfaces, or APIs, are how software talks to other software. APIs have been used extensively across several industries, including finance, telecoms and consumer electronics. They allow the complexity of underlying systems to be abstracted away, enabling developers to integrate services in novel and useful ways. Consequently, APIs are key ingredients in most modern digital experiences. For example, Google APIs give developers access to a range of machine learning technologies for image classification and language translation. Amazon Web Services have also released its Rekognition API, which can identify objects and humans from image data.
The power of APIs
APIs are powerful because they allow users to create products that perform advanced, complex tasks without needing specific expertise by abstracting away the complexity of data processing and analysis. For this reason, APIs are a key component in AI and machine learning deployment. In particular, they can help by allowing users to analyse data instantly with models that would typically take months or years to develop.
The most valuable APIs tend to be designed to make developers’ jobs easier, typically designing them with the expectation that other developers will use them in the future. This approach to API design is known as designed for consumption and drives product development at PulseAI. When it comes to APIs, change isn’t popular. Developers are used to iterating quickly and often, but the creators of APIs lose that flexibility as soon as they gain users.
APIs in healthcare
The adoption of API technology for the deployment of AI in healthcare can improve the experience for patients, doctors and providers. Patients could access their own medical records to help them manage chronic conditions and take closer ownership of their health with connected devices. Providers could gain better insights from aggregated patient data to improve treatment outcomes. Doctors could have more time to spend with patients instead of manually reviewing large amounts of data.
At PulseAI, we develop deep learning technology for ECG interpretation and expose it via an API. The API operates as the building block for remote patient ECG monitoring solutions, allowing accurate and efficient analysis of ECG data from a range of different supported devices and services. The benefits of APIs are clear, and they're only going to grow in importance as the world becomes increasingly technologically connected.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we go through the PulseAI API and how it can be used.
